


Take heed of loving me

by Petra



Series: The country of the heart [4]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Body Worship, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Multi, Other, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:50:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mario is afraid to want what he wants, but fortunately for him, he's not the only person who wants it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take heed of loving me

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://sage.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**sage**](http://sage.dreamwidth.org/), [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=derrydown)[**derrydown**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=derrydown), and [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/stepquietly/profile)[](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/stepquietly/)**stepquietly** for beta-reading. This story is fiction and bears no deliberate resemblance to anyone's life.

It's Sidney's idea.

Sort of.

He brings it up, at least, because it's not the sort of thing Mario's going to ask for. Nathalie has made remarks on the subject but she knows not to push matters like this, not the complicated things.

Not discussions that begin with, "So, do you want to?" and end--at least temporarily--with Sidney on his knees over Mario's lap, with Nathalie sitting next to him and watching avidly. The only small mercy is that they're naked, which makes it all feel more like sex and less like something straight from the kind of midnight thoughts that don't bear examination in the cold light of dawn.

Mario would have, should have said no, despite the fact that he does want to, that anyone would want to.

In the moment, he chokes.

"We don't have to do this," he says, and if his voice is less than steady, he's sure his hand isn't shaking on the small of Sidney's back--too intimate a touch for a public space even if they were dressed, but not half as intimate as the images in his mind.

"Good," Sidney says, and doesn't move to get up. "If we had to do this and somehow we hadn't started before, that would suck."

Nathalie runs her fingers through Sidney's hair and nudges Mario gently with her elbow. "If you're just going to give him a backrub, there are better angles."

"I'm not sure about that." It's true based on the angles--there's no way he can get much leverage--but Sidney doesn't seem as stressed out as he could be. The only person who really needs a backrub is Mario, and he's not going to get one till he figures out how to get Sidney off his lap without making them both stare at him and ask whether he's feeling all right.

For his part, Mario is staring with all his strength, trying to memorize every line of Sidney's body, the light and shadow of his muscles and the way they shift. Every time he thinks about doing something other than digging his knuckles into the tight cords along Sidney's spine and making him shiver, or tracing the lines of his ribs, or mapping the edges of his quadriceps, the staring gets a little worse. It's not that he's not allowed to look, here and now, but he's always aware that it's a gift.

Mario has spent most of his life surrounded by extremely healthy young men, not allowed to acknowledge that their bodies were more than well-honed tools. Sidney's almost posing for him, like a model for some perverted figure drawing class, all his strength waiting for a direction, a wall to go over, a shift to play.

People have made statues of much uglier things than the power in Sidney's thighs. It's wrong to ask him for something as simple and awful as what he says he wants when he's capable of so much more.

It would be more to the point, kinder, gentler, to ease him onto the bed and rim him till he begs for mercy. The last thing Mario wants to do is hurt him. The last thing he deserves is punishment.

"That feels great," Sidney says, the way he talks about a good stretch. He arches up into the touch. "But you don't have to keep going if you want to do something else."

"I'm fine," Mario says. It's not a lie, exactly, even if it's not the entire truth.

Nathalie kisses Mario's temple and gives him a sidelong look that makes him wish he had clothes on. She knows him too well, and he doesn't own a single pair of pants that would hide how hard he is, but some kind of armor might help. "Can I interrupt your massage, Sid?" she asks.

"Sure. What would you like?"

She pats Sidney's foot. "You just stay where you are," she says. "Do you mind if I give you a smack?"

Sidney laughs. "Go for it."

Mario flinches more than Sidney does when her hand lands on Sidney's ass, not hard enough to make him move a centimeter. "You don't have to," Mario says.

"What if I want to?" Nathalie runs her thumb over the curve of Sidney's ass and hits him again. There's a little color when she moves her fingers, but it fades immediately. "Do you want me to stop, Sid?"

"No, not if you're having fun.".

Nathalie raises her eyebrows and gives Mario a meaningful look before she smacks Sidney again.

He hisses through his teeth and shifts his weight backward a little. If he moves much further he'll be kneeling between them. "You can keep going."

"I'm not hurting you, am I?" she asks, still looking at Mario's face because no matter how many times she complains fondly that Sidney has all the subtlety of a rhinoceros in love and Mario might as well hire a skywriter and start planning a wedding, Nathalie is pretty obvious, too.

"No," Sidney says immediately. "I didn't think you were trying to."

"No, I'm not." The next spank is louder, maybe a little harder. "I'm not sure I could like this."

Sidney rests his weight on his left arm and reaches back toward her. "We'd figure something out if you wanted to."

"Not tonight, thank you," Nathalie says, like she doesn't want any more salad.

"God," Mario says. If they keep this up he's going to leave them to it--or he'd like to think he could find a way to leave them to it.

She squeezes Sidney's fingers for a moment, then lets his hand go. "Is this working for you?"

"It's okay." Sidney shrugs. "Please keep going, if you want to. You don't have to stop all the time."

Mario laughs once, feeling the words like a punch in the stomach. "Sid. Stop. Why are you doing this if it's just okay?"

Sidney sits back on his heels and Mario sighs in relief. He looks like none of this has done much of anything for him, or worse, to him. He's not even red in the face, just calm and collected as if they do this all the time and it's no stranger than anything else. "I thought you wanted it. I can blow you instead if you'd rather."

"Not right now," Nathalie says. She makes room between them for Sidney to sit so he's not kneeling. "I'm not done with this yet unless you are."

Mario closes his eyes, futilely trying not to picture them at it, Sidney crimson and writhing, Nathalie calling him a good boy or a bad boy or anything in between. "I'll leave you to it," he says.

"Please don't." Sidney puts his hand on Mario's thigh, which is almost a good enough reason to stay where he is. "What do you need me to do differently?"

Mario covers his face with his hands because there is no good answer to that, and all of the possible bad answers are lining up in his head, demanding that he say them one after the other until he has exactly what he doesn't want to want. "It's fine. You didn't do anything wrong."

Nathalie rubs the back of Mario's neck. "If it was fine, you wouldn't be sitting there hard enough to pound nails and trying not to touch either of us."

Sometimes he loves her more than anything in the world, and sometimes he wishes she didn't know him as well as she does. "I don't think this is a good idea," Mario tries next, in case that works better as an argument than 'I don't want to,' which both of them have to know is a bald-faced lie.

"Why not?" Sidney leans against Mario's side, the weight and heat of him comfortable, normal despite everything they weren't quite doing. "You haven't done anything yet."

"No. Sorry." Mario sighs and wishes they weren't so close to him, that he could have stopped this earlier, that he didn't know exactly how Sidney sounds when someone hits him and he enjoys it. That's going too far down the wrong path.

Nathalie reaches across Sidney and puts her hand on Mario's knee, somewhere between affectionate and making sure they're staying in one place long enough to finish the conversation. "If you don't want to, say so."

"I do want to," Mario admits, and the rest of the words he's trying to put to the complicated mess get tangled in his head when they both look at him.

"Then what's the problem?" Sidney asks.

Mario spends a very long time trying to put together a sentence. The only way he can think of to say what he means is to use sarcasm: "I have no fucking idea. There's nothing wrong with wanting to take you over my knee and paddle your ass red. Nothing strange about that, no, it's not as though anyone's made fun of you for living here or said we might be doing things exactly like that, and I've never thought about it, about all the ways their jokes are and aren't true because I'm not, I don't want to be--" Even in the heat of that sentence he can't say the words that are stuck in his throat. "No," is all he manages.

Nathalie squeezes his shoulder and waits as though he's going to add to that tirade with anything useful.

"I don't care what they say." Sidney shrugs, smiling a little. "They can make up whatever they want to, and they're not going to be right except by mistake. Does it matter if they make a stupid joke that happens to be true, once or twice?"

"If it's awful, yes. Maybe." Mario rubs his eyes so he doesn't have to see the way they're looking at him, like they're waiting for him to put his thoughts together, start making sense, and get down to the business at hand. As if he can fix this just by saying the right words, and everything will be all right. "I don't want to be your daddy."

Nathalie says, "Ah," softly, and stops there. Whatever she got out of that, at least she's not trying to explain it to Sidney. There are too many layers to the problem, and every one is uglier than the one before.

"Okay," Sidney says after a moment. He's not pulling away and he doesn't sound disgusted. It could be worse. "You're not, and I don't want you to be either."

"And I don't want to change my mind about that. That's what I'm afraid of. If--" Mario clears his throat and goes through with the rest of the sentence, ignoring the way it makes his stomach hurt. "If things were different. If we weren't--doing this. If you were--" the words stop on him, and he can't keep going in English, or, when he tries, French. "I couldn't be prouder of you if we were actually--" and none of the simple words will come "--related."

Sidney says, "Thank you," like that wasn't an incredibly strange thing to say under the circumstances. "I love you, too," as if it's that easy, that simple.

"That's not what I meant. Not--not the only thing I meant." Mario sighs.

"Run it past me again," Sidney says. "Or--Nathalie, do you--"

"No," she says, a little too quickly, which means yes, and from the way Sidney shifts and looks at her, he knows it too. "If you want something, you have to be able to ask for it. That goes for you, too, Mario." She pats Mario's shoulder.

"I can't think of anything you've asked for I wasn't happy to try," Sidney says.

"That's the whole damn problem." Mario laughs because it's either that or leave the room. "You trust us. You trust me. With--everything. What happens when I make the wrong decision? When I think something will be all right, but it goes wrong?"

"Then we won't do it again." Sidney frowns and gives him a look that makes Mario shiver. If Sidney doesn't trust him, everything is going to hell, and it's his fault. "Is this still about sex?"

"Yes. No. I don't know."

"Take a deep breath," Nathalie says, and it's automatic for Mario to listen to her even when he's flustered. "Better. Another one. Try that sentence again?"

"Yes, it's about sex. Not anything else. You haven't done anything wrong--and neither have I, yet. That's the point. That's what I don't want to do, is fuck things up."

"Well, you haven't yet, but I'm getting cold." Sidney reaches for the sheets at the foot of the bed and wraps them around his shoulders. "You know you wouldn't actually hurt me, right? I took harder hits than that when I was a Timbit."

Mario counts to ten and deliberately does not consider that too deeply before he lets himself say, "Not physically. But I don't want to do something that changes the way I think about you."

Nathalie asks, "Why would it, if you're already thinking about doing it and you want to?"

The only possible answer to that question is, "Because it would."

"How do you know?"

She's helping in approximately the same way that it's necessary to help someone to learn to ride a bike: hold on just long enough, then push and hope they won't fall over. "There's a difference between thinking about something and actually doing it--and--" he has to keep talking or they'll ask him why he's saying something completely obvious, but the next sentence is stuttering in his head "--and. And when I think about it, it's not really you." Mario offers Sidney his hand, palm-up, and squeezes his fingers gently. "And it's not really me, either. I don't want to--punish you."

"For what?" Sidney asks, startled.

Mario spreads his hands. "Anything. If there was something wrong, this--this isn't what we'd do about it."

Nathalie adds, "Ever."

"Good. That would be weird." Sidney makes a face. "So what's the problem?"

It's so obvious it's hard to put into words. What's the point of spanking if it's not for a reason? "Because--because--I don't know how this works if it's not some kind of--of correction."

Sidney smacks himself in the thigh and smiles like he's getting away with something. "Like that, only a little bit higher."

Mario shakes his head. "Thanks." It's better that he can't help but smile, better that Sidney can make jokes about this, that they haven't managed to do anything to hurt each other. "And you still want to try this?"

"Yes. If you think you'd like it without it being some kind of punishment, because I don't really--" Sidney lets the sheets go.

"That's fine. Yes." Neither of them move. Mario says, "Kiss me first, all right?"

It's hard to stop kissing Sidney. The promise of what's next is right there, possibly wonderful, possibly terrible. If they just hold each other for an hour or so, there on the edge of the bed, until it's too late to do anything else--but Sidney turns his head after a few moments. "I'm ready when you are," he says, and there's a dare in his voice.

"You're going to tell me if you get bored. Or if it hurts. Or if you want me to stop. Or if it's just--not what you want." Mario tries to lay down the law, but he's afraid his words come out pathetic instead.

"Of course." Sidney lets him go much too soon and moves so he's kneeling over Mario's lap again.

Mario runs his hands down Sidney's back, reminding himself that nothing is going to go terribly wrong, that this is what they both want--what they all want, judging by the way Nathalie's looking at him. They're going to have a discussion about this, he can tell, and probably more than one. "Do you have any idea what you look like?" he asks.

Sidney shrugs, the muscles in his shoulders moving slightly. "Kind of silly, right now."

"Not from here," Nathalie says.

"Not at all." Mario kisses his shoulder.

"I mean, if you'd just--" The way he jumps at the first smack of Mario's hand is--it can't hurt, it doesn't. He's grinning. "That's better. Do you want me to keep count or something?"

"No." Mario takes another breath. "Just tell me how it feels."

"Fine? Try it again." He shivers at the next spank and bites his lip for a moment. "Okay, that time it hurt a little more, but not much. Keep going."

Mario wants to kiss him, but not enough to ask him to move. Getting this far has been difficult enough. "As long as it's a good hurt."

"Yes." Sidney makes a soft sound at the next strike and shifts his weight. "I can see why people do this. I think--okay, one more? --Again?"

"I think you might kill me if you keep saying that." Mario runs his thumb over the prints from the last blow where he can see the outline of his fingers for a moment, bright against Sidney's ass, before it fades into a softer pink.

Sidney sighs and presses back against his hand. "You don't have to stop. Really."

"Maybe not for your sake, no."

Nathalie asks, "Can I help?"

Sidney laughs and lets his head hang down so his hair falls into his face. His cheeks are a little flushed. "Sure, if you want to."

She puts her hand over Mario's, pressing down for a second. "I can take a shift when your arm gets tired. But until then, may I finger you, Sid?"

He shudders and nods, spreading his legs a little farther. "If you can figure out how, with the angles, I mean. I really don't want you to stop."

If there was a way to hug him and spank him at the same time, Mario would do them both. He squeezes Sidney's ass again, which isn't like a hug at all, but makes him sigh. "We'll manage somehow."

Nathalie kisses Mario's cheek and says, "You're doing great so far," then gets up.

Sidney leans against Mario's chest. "You really are. The sting is kind of going away, though, so can you start again?"

Mario is shaking more than Sidney is, which feels backwards. "I'm not sure I'm going to remember how to stop when you're tired of this," he says. He wants to make it a joke, but it sounds too much like the truth.

"It'll be fine--God, can you--a little harder?" Sidney bites his lip and stifles a groan. "I need--"

The words cut through the rising tide of arousal in Mario's head and remind him there might be something to worry about. He stops, of course, because no matter how much he's afraid he won't be able to in the abstract, it's as simple as pulling his hand away. "What's wrong?"

"Please," Sidney says, his voice choked for a moment. "Can I get off my knees? I just need--" he rolls his hips "--to touch you. A lot. Now."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Nathalie says as she sits next to Mario again. "Here, put your feet over my lap--back up a little more--there we go."

The difference between having Sidney bracing himself up, pushing back when he wants more, and flat on his belly, grinding his dick against Mario's thigh and rubbing his stomach over Mario's erection every time he so much as breathes, makes Mario lightheaded. He wants to trace every one of Sidney's well-defined muscles with his fingers, or with his tongue, or both. He also wants to rut against him until he comes on Sidney's stomach, marking him, but that's not what Sidney asked him for.

"Are you comfortable?" he asks, looking for any last reason to move.

"I was until you stopped again." Sidney pats Mario's thigh and rocks against him. "You can--" he lets his breath hiss between his teeth when Mario smacks him, and he arches his back, asking for it with every line of his body. "Yes, just like that, please. Nathalie--"

"I haven't forgotten," she says. "Spread for me a little bit more."

Sidney isn't still for a second after that, not with Nathalie easing a finger into him--he gasps, the way he always does at the first touch, as if he never remembers that it's going to feel the way it does--and it's harder to spank him with her hand in the way, but it's worth the trouble.

"There," she says, when they find a rhythm they can keep up. "Can you--do you want more?"

"Please," Sidney says, spreading his legs wider until she presses another finger into him.

Nathalie sighs and leans on Mario's shoulder. "I wish you could see yourself like this."

Sidney's stomach muscles tremble and the way his skin drags against Mario's erection is enough to drive anyone out of their mind without everything else. With it, it's a struggle to remember to keep going. "Oh, fuck, please, I--" Sidney shakes his head, fighting for words when Mario hesitates for a moment. "Don't stop. Please, please don't stop."

"What does it feel like?" Mario asks. He needs to know that it's all right, better than all right, that Sidney's not trying to make him keep going for Mario's sake.

Sidney gasps and laughs, shakes his head again. "I can't. I. It's--amazing. Hurts--don't stop, don't--just--" he buries his face in the sheets, his hips jerking. "Deeper--a little bit--"

"Like that?" Nathalie asks, twisting her hand.

Sidney writhes, pressing back against her hand. "Yes, I--yes."

"God, you're beautiful," Mario says. There should be more words than that, better words. He's more than that, and there's no way to tell him so.

Sidney shudders, his hips rocking faster. "I can feel you tense every time he hits you," Nathalie says, her voice soft and fascinated. "Yes--like that. Do you want more?"

Sidney says, "Please," as if it hurts him to say it, or as if the word is hard to find. "I, I want, harder, hurt me a little more--oh, fuck, yes--"

Mario buries his face in the back of Sidney's neck, kissing the sweaty, tense muscles there and fighting the urge to thrust up against him until he comes. He's almost certain he can wait, though he doesn't know exactly what he's waiting for, only that if he misses a second of this, he won't be able to forgive himself. And if he says, "God, I love you," against Sidney's skin, it's not as though they don't know.

"Next time, I'll spank you," Nathalie says, and her voice is even except for the tremble that means she's pressing her thighs together and on the edge of coming just from that. "And you can take Mario's fingers like this, let him fill you up, squeeze his fingers so fucking tight every time I hit you--God, Sid, do you know how good that feels?--and when you're open and ready we'll take turns with you until we wear you out for once. I'd flip you over and ride you right now, but you'd never forgive me."

Sidney shakes his head. "Don't make him stop, please, don't stop, just a little more--I--" he gasps and chokes back a moan as he comes, hot and desperate against Mario's thigh. His hips jerk for a few long seconds and Mario hits him with the same rhythm, keeping the timing going, until the tension drains out of him in a rush, leaving him sweaty and drooping with the marks of Mario's fingers on his ass and Nathalie's fingers deep inside him.

Mario wants to tell him how wonderful he is, but the words aren't there. He runs his fingers through Sidney's hair instead, listening to his breathing slow.

Nathalie pats Sidney lightly and he sucks in a breath. "Should I let you go?"

Sidney rolls his hips slowly, testing. "Okay. I should get up, anyway, and get some tissues. And--" he wriggles again, more pointedly. "And get you off." Nathalie pulls her hand away.

"I don't think it will take much," Mario admits.

"Cleaning up will be harder, yeah." Sidney gets up with some fraction of his normal energy. His face almost as red as his ass, but he's grinning, even if his knees are a little shaky. "Or we could keep going."

"The sheets are a write-off anyway," Nathalie says, and uses part of the top sheet to wipe down Mario's leg, then hands it to Sidney.

She kisses Sidney while he swipes at himself, and he asks, "Do you want to spank me now? I mean, I might be a little sore, but I can deal with it."

Mario covers his eyes and tries not to wonder how long they could keep him this fucked-out, bright-eyed and eager as ever. "Is it that good?" he asks, as if he couldn't tell.

"Maybe tomorrow--or the day after, since you have a game." Nathalie squeezes Sidney's ass and makes him shiver. "You're going to be sore enough as it is."

"It was worth it," Sidney says. He touches Mario's wrist. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he says automatically, and then tries for the truth. "Just afraid I'll come all over myself if I move. Or look at you for too long."

"Then close your eyes," Sidney says, and leans in to kiss him, teasing and light. "I made you do all the work and it was--it was amazing, and we're doing that again. Can it be my turn now?"

Nathalie asks, "For what?" before Mario can catch his breath.

"I want you to fuck me. Please. Lie back and I--"

Mario has to bite his tongue hard to stop himself from coming at the words, and no one's touched him for several minutes. "Hang on," he says through his teeth.

"For what?"

"If you want me to do anything--at all--give me a minute." He holds up his hand so neither of them will kiss him and takes a few breaths. "Yes. I'd love to, if I can last that long."

Nathalie rubs his shoulder, not quite soothing. "You'll manage somehow."

"Only if you promise you'll be quiet." Mario shakes his head and smiles helplessly at Sidney. "Right. Where do you want me?"

"On your back," Sidney says, still beaming at him.

His shoulder and his back complain slightly while he's getting there, nothing more than griping from old injuries that should be fine by morning. And by morning, he might be able to think again, to do more than kiss Nathalie and try to remember to breathe. There's no hope of coherent thought with Sidney straddling his hips and getting lined up, then sinking down onto him, slowly, then faster with a sigh. The line of concentration between his eyebrows smooths out. "Let me know when I can move," Mario says, trying not to grit his teeth.

"Give me just a second." Sidney rolls his hips and Mario has to tighten his hand into a fist and dig his nails into his palm to have any control at all. The tight heat of him is overwhelming.

"I don't. I don't know if I can give you more than a second," he says.

Sidney laughs. "You're doing great." He rocks again, nods once, and kneels up a little. "Okay--no, wait."

Mario does not turn his face to hide it in the pillow and groan in frustration, but it's a close call. "If you need me to wait, get off me. Right now. Please."

"Nathalie, would you spank me?" Sidney asks, and gasps when Mario's hips buck, defying every conscious command he's giving them.

"Absolutely," she says, and gets up on her knees.

"Jesus, Sid," Mario says, much too late for a warning. "Sorry. Are you all right?"

He's still smiling and holding himself up, so it can't have been too bad. "Yes, of course. Are you?"

Mario shakes his head slowly. "Yes. Just losing my fucking mind."

"Mm. Good." Sidney nods to Nathalie as matter-of-factly as he would if he was asking her to start a drill, and she winds up and smacks him as he eases himself down. The clutch of his muscles is nearly unbearable on its own. He makes a quiet little noise that has to be on purpose because he's taken much worse without a sound on the ice. And the second Mario thinks he might be able to stand this for more than the space of the next breath, Sidney says, "Again."

"Fuck--the way you--" Mario covers his mouth with his hand and bites into the base of his thumb, hoping the sting will help. At least, if he's going to come--and the way Sidney arches and rolls his hips, there's no question about that--he can keep himself quiet. If he could watch this all night, somehow, he would, and memorize the flex and roll of Sidney's muscles, the flush on his chest. Mario wants to do more than fuck up into Sidney, meeting his thrusts a few times while Nathalie swats him, but there's no way he can hold back. The orgasm hits hard, wrung out of him with more force for every time he's managed not to come, every hungry little sound Sidney has made, and the maddening slide of his body.

Sidney pats his stomach. "Can I lie on top of you? I'm kind of a mess, but--"

Mario spreads his arms. Sidney kneels up, wincing, and lies forward to hug him. They're both a mess, and it will come off in the shower eventually, as soon as either of them can move. "That was--" Mario says. "God."

"You kept making me talk about it. You should tell me, too," Sidney says, and Mario doesn't have to open his eyes to know how smug Sidney's feeling.

"Some of the best sex of my life, thank you." Mario kisses the top of his head.

"Really?" Sidney looks up at him. "But you've, I mean, you've been doing this for a long time."

"Not with the two of you." Mario reaches up toward Nathalie and she takes his hand. "So--not with people ganging up on me, trying to make me say what I want against my better judgment."

"It was good teamwork all around, I thought," she says, lacing their fingers together.

"I was in enough trouble with Nathalie on her own, but--" he closes his eyes for a moment and can't help smiling. If he's whistling all day tomorrow, so be it. "Sid, the next time you want something--"

"Yes?" Sidney asks after a long moment.

"Ask. And keep asking, even if I start arguing, as long as it's something you actually want."

"I will," Sidney promises. "Nathalie, can I go down on you?"

She lies down next to them, settling into her pillow and putting her arm around Sidney's shoulders. "Not tonight, thank you."

Mario can feel himself drifting off, despite the weight on his torso, as the exertion and the warmth of their bodies catch up to him. He breathes a little easier when Sidney pushes himself up on his elbows and turns to look at her. "What, really? Was it that bad?"

Nathalie laughs and sits up enough to kiss him. "You were spectacular, and I'm even less patient than Mario was. Don't worry about it."

"If you're sure."

"Tomorrow," she says. "For now, come take a shower with me."

Sidney rolls off to the side much too easily, as if he's not exhausted or half-asleep. "I guess we can change the sheets in the morning," he says, and they tug the top sheet up to Mario's chest.

"It'll be easier then," she says, and if she says anything else, Mario's too asleep to hear her.

The strangest thing about the morning is that nothing is strange. Sidney is cheerful and doesn't seem to wince when he sits down. Nathalie hums while she's eating her breakfast. The sun rises, just as it always does, and no one tells Mario they shouldn't have done what they did. He doesn't have to apologize, and when Nathalie catches his eye just right, or Sidney grins, everything feels like it's in the right place.

With the game schedule, it's three days before Sidney asks again.

It's much easier to say yes the second time. 


End file.
